There's a lot of irrelevants in the circus

Tag Archives: regulations

Politicooffers us another example of “terrible people who are stunned by how bad Trump really is” (we can also call this “The Mitchie”).

Publicly, petroleum companies and their trade groups are cheering Trump’s efforts to undo former President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations, including restrictions on fracking-related pollution, pipeline permits and offshore drilling. But quietly, people in the industry are growing worried that deregulation could backfire on them, according to interviews with a dozen executives, lobbyists, lawyers and analysts.

Among their fears: Laxer rules could set the stage for an environmental disaster like 2010’s BP oil spill in the Gulf, which blackened the industry’s reputation and spurred a regulatory clampdown.

“Every industry wants regulations that make sense, but you don’t need to roll things back so far that it opens an opportunity for outsiders to criticize, or something bad happens,” said Brian Youngberg, an energy analyst at the investment firm Edward Jones.

A person at one oil and gas company expressed similar worries. “It’s not helpful if regulations are streamlined so as to allow something to happen — say, a methane explosion or a spill — and we’d be painted with it as an entire industry,” said the person, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

Now, far be it from me to tell titans of industry what to do, but if you are worried about public reaction to you destroying the air and water, if not actually worried about destroying the air and water, maybe you could do more than the absolute minimum required of you by a government bound and determined to make every single corner the end of Wigan Pier?

But, I guess by untying their hands, Trump is truly binding them to their fate. What are you supposed to do, you know? Be marginally less profitable? And so it goes.